Pages

Monday, March 26, 2012

The Universal Uncertainty Argument

The Universal Uncertainty Argument is an argument against the existence of God that claims that He cannot exist because omniscience is impossible. It is allegedly a logical paradox, stating that, "God cannot exist because God cannot know for sure that it is God."

The full argument, as a syllogism, runs as follows:

1. An uncertain God is a contradiction in terms.2. Everything in the Universe must be fundamentally uncertain about its own relationship to the Universe as a whole because there is no way of attaining such certainty.3. Therefore even an entity with all God’s other qualities cannot have the final quality of certain knowledge concerning its own relationship to the Universe as a whole.4. Therefore God cannot exist because even any potential God cannot know for sure that it is God.

The argument is a Straw Man because of the second premise, "Everything in the Universe must be fundamentally uncertain about its own relationship to the Universe as a whole because there is no way of attaining such certainty."

This is a Straw Man because it sets up an inaccurate conception of God to attack. It claims that God cannot exist because He would not understand His own relationship with the universe. It ignores a characteristic of God that is so fundamental that almost any theist will agree with it; His omniscience.

God's omniscience is a part of almost every belief system around the world. In Christian scripture, it is also well attested. One of dozens of examples is Psalms 147:5, which reads:

Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite.

Because of this, one cannot present an argument against the existence of God which hinges on a statement such as, "God cannot exist because He does not know X," because if He does exist, then he does know X.

Therefore, the argument is immediately begging the question by assuming that God, as commonly conceived, does not exist.

In addition, how would we even come to that second premise? What evidence do we have that "everything in the universe must be fundamentally uncertain?"

Why must we be uncertain? Why is it impossible to know? Also, what would lead us to think that, "We do not know, therefore God cannot know?"